Technical Abstract:
High yields are considered to be any level of yields significantly higher than the maximum county level yields. Producers often use the county level yields as their metric to determine their status among the rest of the producers in the county and to normalize for any potential local weather variation, e.g., lack of rainfall, excess rainfall, hail, high winds, etc. Over the past 100 years of agronomic research there has been a continual pursuit of high yields as an indicator of being able to properly manage the system. There are no single additives that can be added to the soil or onto the plant that will remove all of the limitations and achieve high yields. There are, however, strategies that provide a pathway toward being able to more fully understand how to overcome the yield limitations. The valuable approach is to dissect the parameters that limit yield and when these effects have occurred during the growing season. Achieving high yields is not an art but requires the implementation of an understanding of the principles that affect yield. To achieve high yields requires patience to first improve the soil and then begin to adopt management strategies that increase the efficiency of water, solar radiation, and N use. Evaluation of how these factors respond each season for the crops grown in the field and then compare against the county average will determine if progress is being made toward achieving the higher yields.